The importance of diversity, and our troubled son Ryu

 This is going to be a long one, so perhaps you should grab a drink and a snack, or a smoke if you're partial to that sort of thing, before you sit down to trawl through this.

When I was a much younger boy, probably 10-15 years ago, I went on vacations with my family. They were a blast, regardless of where we went - I had a good time. A big part of having a good time, was the number of arcades I had the opportunity to visit. I'd drop 20p after 20p into those machines, sometimes with my brother in tow, sometimes on my own, to keep playing. And I loved the classics. Konami's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Simpsons' games being top of the list. Occasionally though my brother and I would go seperate ways. Him to throw harpoons at ninja's chests in Mortal Kombat, and me? Well, not being allowed to play Mortal Kombat at that age due to the graphic violence it depicted, I opted for Street Fighter 2. And thus began a fleeting romance with the story of ninjas, sonic booms, a guy with a stupid hat, and men in bathrobes suspiciously missing the sleeves who could throw fireballs (at one time "Hadoken" was a banned word in my father's presence!)

It wasn't until this game...

That I finally got back into the series, and bought my first copy of a Street Fighter game at the behest of my good friend, Liam. If you haven't played it, it's fun as hell, the roster is huge, the controls are easy to pick up but difficult to master, it looks gorgeous, and it's downright fun. A little bit of time spent learning the fundamentals will get you a long way. Most importantly to me, it's pretty well balanced, with the "worst" characters, that is to say characters who have a statistical disadvantage in their win/lose ratio against the rest of the cast based on a ten-round trial, not being all that far behind the "best" characters. That's not something easy to do with a roster of 30+ characters.

But my biggest gripe is with this fucker right here:

I hate you SO MUCH.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Ryu. Series' mainstay, the most iconic character in the entire series, and more than likely the most important (much to my dismay). Heck, in Street Fighter 3 there was some downright terrible backlash that the majority of the cast had been replaced. With the exception of - that's right, folks - Ryu and Ken. Later installments added Chun-Li and Akuma from the SF2 era line-up. Throughout the series he has been a staple. An icon in the era of fighting games, Ryu may very well be the best fighter to grace any fighting game, offering a style that will hold the hands of newcomers, right up to being the number-one character of the best Street Fighter player in the world, Daigo Umehara.

And I fucking hate him.

Ryu paradoxically is both fundamentally good and bad for the game, as a whole. On the one hand, he (or Ken, but I like Ken, he's got the same voice actor as Devil May Cry's Dante and can dress up as a cowboy, so that scores him more brownie points) is the perfect candidate for showing people the ropes of the game, letting them get their heads around the mechanics, the controls, while still being able to have a good time and go toe-to-toe with the rest of the cast. But this isn't necessarily a good thing.


You see, in a game with a cast as diverse as Street Fighter, everyone ends up with certain advantages and disadvantages. Zangief, a Russian wrestler fondly nicknamed "The Red Cyclone" has a ton of health and deals a load of damage per hit. The downside? He's pathetically slow and has no projectile, making it difficult to close the gap against some fighters. How about Cammy? She's fast and strong, but she's about as durable as a greased paper bag. Ryu doesn't have this concern - he's balanced, and supposed to help newcomers, so his faults are harder to exploit and look out for.


Now, before you start calling me a hypocrite when considering how at the end of my first article I was preaching "play who you like, not what's the best", understand that I have nothing against people who enjoy Ryu as a character, and pour a whole lot of time into learning how to play him well. If Ryu is your character of choice because you have put in the effort to play him at a higher level, then more power to you.


What we can't deny, however, is that out of a thirty-strong roster, Ryu is the most popular character to play as. Traditionally when playing a game, players start out with the character that TV Tropes identifies as "The Mario" - a character with stats that weigh in at average and used to understand the fundamentals of the game. Mario, for example, is the most balanced racer in the Mario Kart games, as well as the recommended introductory character to Super Smash Bros. In World of Warcraft, one of the more popular recommendations for new players is the Paladin class due to their strong armour and ability to cast healing spells. It's all in the name of making things more user-friendly.

Speaking in a very general sense, however, players will move on from "The Mario" as they start to shape their own playstyle. Continuing with the Mario Kart theme, maybe they want a racer who isn't as fast off the block, but has a tremendous top speed like Bowser or Wario. Maybe good acceleration is what you're after so you can grab that early lead and keep it with aggressive use of power-ups. How about handling? Are corners a big issue for you? Pick someone who's good at corners. You see where I'm going with this - after practising with the middle-of-the-road character, you choose one that fits your playstyle and learn to exploit those strengths and minimise those weaknesses. The literal horde of Ryu players is counter-intuitive the whole structure of the learning curve.


Because of the inherent competition of the Street Fighter paradigm and whole fighting game genre, winning is important. That sounds stupid, but really it is. More importantly, winning is important because the game is intended to be played not by one person against a computer controlled opponent, but other thinking, breathing players. Thus competition is bred, and Street Fighter is where it's at for video game competition. Winning was important in, say, Resident Evil, because it allowed the narrative to resume - stay alive by killing monsters, collect keys to unlock new areas, continue the game to the conclusion. Street Fighter doesn't have that, thus the emphasis is on competetive gameplay against fellow players. It's not a fault, more that it's the staple of the genre. Fighting games have at best, no narrative, and at worst a very convoluted one. But that's okay, because the aim of the game is two people punching and kicking each other into unconsciousness in a best-of-three-rounds scenario.


Where was I going with that mini-rant? Well, when you want to win, you do whatever you can to maximise the strengths and weaknesses. Ryu's strength is his unwavering balance across the board in all areas, and utilising these to win round after round. It makes my blood boil to see this:

It shouldn't be this hard to find a shot of "X vs. Ryu", google.

A good 70% of the time I'm playing online. It's breeding a lack of diversity and playstyles within the community. In a 30+ character roster, it should not be a surprise when any character except this one shows up. Because of his well-balanced nature, Ryu can play a rush-down game and be all over you, not giving you a moments' peace. Or, more frustratingly, he can hang back, play defensively, and punish any opening you can with any of his "well-rounded" moveset. He can control the pace of the fight via mere threat of his moveset. Does this sound like a well-rounded character to you? I didn't think so either.


But it doesn't end there. Street Fighter has for a long time been the king of professional video gaming, where thousands of players come to test their skills from, and indeed around the world. Remember how I mentioned the number one ranked player in the world near the start of this rant? Daigo Umehara? Remember how I mentioned his "main" character is Ryu? Well this has a knock-on effect. You see, when someone sees someone do something well, they tend to try and emulate it in order to advance their own skills at the subject matter. If you watch a lot of basketball, you might emulate some plays made to enhance your game.


Put that on an international stage and with as wide an audience as the Xbox 360 and PS3 can provide, and now you can see why we have a problem. Once again - breeding a lack of diversity and playstyles, and it downright fucking sucks. Sure you get to play against a billion Ryu and Kens, but at the end of the day, what have you learnt? You've learnt maybe how to counter Ryu or Ken (difficult, since it varies greatly with your opponents' inherent skill and watching very carefully for "The Mario" to miss a beat). But, here it comes again, with a thirty-plus strong roster, how in the world do you learn to play against any of the other cast? You can't necessarily transfer your Ryu-countering skills over to, say, Blanka, because they play radically different.


When I play against Ryu or Ken, there is one outcome with two fundamentally different paths. Whether I gain a hollow victory or suffer a bitter defeat, it's all for nothing because the odds are the next fight is against a different Ryu/Ken, or heaven forbid a rematch. If I lose, then once again I haven't learnt anything I didn't know before. I won't ragequit or pull out my network cable every time I see a Ryu/Ken player, but I do know the match will be disappointing to play and watch.


How can this be remedied? Well, I'm not sure it can folks. Capcom have done an amazing job of making Ryu and Ken phenominally popular, both as icons of the series. The top player in the world maining him isn't doing the situation any favours either. All I can say is this - if you're holding on to Ryu/Ken because it makes matches easier for you to win, or you feel it's the only way you have a standing chance to win, or you want to emulate "The Beast" (yes, that's Daigo Umehara's nickname, I'm 100% serious), then I urge you to put away your Ryu/Ken, and pick someone completely different.

No way, broseph!

I kid you not, it's not that hard a task. Funnily enough, tournaments don't just attract Ryu/Ken players. They attract all sorts. From Blanka, to Vega (called "Claw" because of the crazy name-hopping between him, M. Bison and Balrog) and Chun-Li. I can guarantee you someone will have a video showing you a tournament-level player kicking someone's face in as Cammy or going crazy as El Fuerte, and I can guarantee that will end up on Youtube. Go look at the Shoryuken Forums and read up on combos, and advice from tournament-level players. The movies are usually gathered there as well. Give it an afternoon or two to learn the fundamentals of that character. Then give it more time to learn the more advanced starts. You'll find it much more rewarding than hanging on to Ryu/Ken to gouge wins out of legitimately bored players.

Finally, I want to show you something. Here's a match at EVO 2010 between Daigo (Ryu) and EG Ricky Ortiz (Rufus, the fat guy). Daigo won the set, but Ricky Ortiz gave him a phenomenal fight for it. That's not important though. Ask yourself - which one looks more fun to play as?

Oh and before you ask - No, I never picked up Ryu or Ken to learn the ropes, or even to play as seriously. In the arcades, I preferred Blanka because he looked rad and could eletrocute things. In SSF4? Well, I started as Cody because his nonchalance appealed to me.


Until next time, see the blog title.